Death on the Rhine

by Charles Whiting

  Sparks paid no attention. He was concentrating totally on reaching that boat and setting off into safe mid-stream. Suddenly, he felt himself flying. He had stumbled over something in the darkness. ‘Gordon Bennett!’ he yelled and sprawled full length, the wind knocked out of him.

  He heard heavy feet pounding behind him. Desperately he raised himself, feeling a little sick. He started to run again. Too late. A tremendous blow hit him in the small of the back. He went down again to his knees under the impact. Next instant two great hairy paws clamped around his throat and he heard the monster grunt, ‘Die Englishman!’

  They were the last words he ever heard…

  Five

  ‘Sparks is missing,’ CPO Ferguson announced at the door of the little wardroom.

  Smith looked up sharply from the inevitable pink gin. In a couple of hours they would be taking out the nightly patrol and this was his last drink. ‘Missing did you say? Missing where?’

  ‘Hey, you, Kerrigan,’ CPO Ferguson barked to Ginger, who was standing behind, looking very uncomfortable. ‘Tell the officer what ye kens. At the double!’

  ‘Well, sir,’ Ginger said, with unusual hesitancy, ‘Sparks has got hissen a tart – er I mean a woman.’ He swallowed hard.

  ‘Get on with it,’ Smith snapped. ‘What’s the woman got to do with it?’

  ‘She’s got a house on the other side of the Rhine and he took the dinghy to – er see her.’

  Smith groaned and Dickie Bird said, ‘The ruddy fool. Doesn’t he know he could land himself in a lot of hot water over there?’

  ‘Yessir,’ Ginger agreed. ‘But yer know what Sparks is with the women. He always fancies his chances something rotten.’

  ‘But why do you think he’s missing?’ Smith interrupted urgently.

  ‘Well, sir, he should have been back an hour ago. Last time he did it,’ Ginger actually blushed, ‘well you know what I mean, sir – in two hours flat. That’s his style. He allus sez he’s a Three F man—’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Three F, sir, and sometimes a Four-F man – find ’em, feel ’em and fuck ’em, if you’ll pardon my French – and then sometimes forget ’em. Four F’s.’ Ginger saw the warning look on Smith’s tense face and he hurried on. ‘Well, he hasn’t come back and me and my oppo Billy thinks something’s happened to him on the other bank.’

  ‘Do you know the house where this woman lives?’ Smith snapped, brain racing electrically.

  ‘Yessir. I’ve seen it a couple of times in daylight and I’ve seen her as well. Big blonde – plenty o’ meat on her.’

  Smith was no longer listening to Ginger. Instead he turned to CPO Ferguson and said hurriedly, ‘Stand the crew to, Chiefie. I’m going to hop on the phone and call Major McIntyre. Dickie,’ he drained the rest of his pink gin in one gulp, ‘You take over till I come back.’

  ‘Of course, Smithie, but what are you going to do, old bean?’

  ‘Go across and find Sparks. I know he’s been a blithering idiot. But he is a good chap and he’s one of us, isn’t he?’

  ‘Of course, Smithie. Quite agree. Cut along then and I’ll get this sorted out.’

  ‘And Dickie,’ Smith paused at the door of the wardroom.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Break out the firearms. You never know in Germany.’ And with that he was gone…

  * * *

  Half an hour later, they were under way, chugging across the Rhine at low speed. McIntyre had brought Dietz with him and when CPO Ferguson handed him a pistol, the former quavered. ‘I don’t like weapons. Do I have to take it?’

  CPO Ferguson snorted something about ‘bloody squareheads’, and Smith said, straining his eyes at the gloom, ‘I’m determined to get my chap back. If we have to use force, then,’ he shrugged and left the rest of his sentence unfinished.

  McIntyre nodded his agreement, head huddled in the collar of his greatcoat, for he had had no time to change into civilian clothes.

  ‘You might be right, Smith. Somehow I have the feeling that this Sparks fellow of yours has got himself in some kind of trouble. Not with husbands or anything of that kind, but with von Horn and his mob.’

  ‘My sentiments exactly,’ Smith said.

  ‘Sir!’ an urgent voice called from the bow.

  It was Ginger Kerrigan.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘There’s the house, sir. To the right a bit.’ Hastily Smith swung up his night glasses. A small cottage came into view. There was a yellow light in the window. It was occupied all right. He nodded to CPO Ferguson at the wheel and he spun the Swordfish round a little and set course for the German woman’s house.

  ‘All right, stand by,’ Smith called softly, as the boat nosed its way to the opposite bank. ‘Ginger and Billy look lively. You’re coming with us. Dickie, you take charge of the Swordfish. Keep your eyes skinned.’

  ‘Like the proverbial tin of peeled tomatoes,’ Dickie Bird answered cheerfully.

  A moment later, the Swordfish heaved to and McIntyre and a highly nervous Dietz followed Smith and the two ratings ashore. Smith paused and scanned the bank to left and right, giving the water quick flashes of his torchbeam. ‘No sign of the dinghy, Major,’ he said after a moment. ‘Strange,’ McIntyre muttered.

  ‘Yes, very. We ought to have seen him if he’d come back in it. And he should have very definitely seen us.’

  ‘Yes, Smith, I agree. Come on, let’s have a look-see at the Hun woman’s house.’

  Carefully, trying to make as little noise as possible, they moved up the garden in the darkness. Suddenly Billy Bennett stumbled and went down on his knees. He mumbled, ‘Sorry, sir, fell over some bleeding thing in the dark.’ He stopped short and then said urgently, ‘Sir, I think I’ve found summat.’

  ‘What?’ Smith demanded in irritation. The fat rating would wake up the whole neighbourhood if he went on babbling like that.

  ‘His cap.’

  ‘Whose cap?’

  ‘Sparks.’

  Smith grabbed for the cap that the fat soldier was holding. He gave it a flash of the torch. It was the one he had bought for the crew. But even without the light he would have recognised it all right. The cap gave off a powerful odour of that violet pomade that Sparks used on his hair. ‘Come on,’ he hissed urgently. ‘I think Sparks is in trouble – bad trouble!’

  They hurried forwards towards the yellow light of the cottage, each man wrapped in a cocoon of his own thoughts and apprehension. Sparks had been a typical cockney matelot, a bit of a show-off who talked too much, but he had been a good shipmate as well. None of them wished him any harm.

  Smith held up his hand. They stopped automatically. He bent and peered through the kitchen window. Despite the lateness of the hour, there was someone inside the kitchen; he could hear that.

  A woman was sitting at the kitchen table, a shawl thrown about her plump naked shoulders. She was slumped there in the classic pose of despair, hands holding her bowed head, shoulders heaving as she sobbed softly, as if her heart were broken. Smith flashed a look around the rest of the kitchen. Nothing. No sign of Sparks. ‘Ginger,’ he hissed.

  Ginger Kerrigan came to his side and peered through the window with him.

  ‘Is that her, Ginger?’

  ‘Yessir. That’s her,’ Ginger whispered back.

  Smith turned and looked at McIntyre. He nodded and drew his revolver and pointed the muzzle to his own brawny chest. That meant he was to lead. Smith nodded his agreement.

  McIntyre took the door handle in his hand and tried it gently. The door didn’t open. It was locked. He didn’t hesitate. He moved back, raised his boot and slammed it at the panel with all his strength. The lock snapped and the door flew open. Next instant he was inside, revolver held menacingly at his hip, ready to fire at the first sign of trouble.

  The woman gasped with shock. The shawl fell from her shoulders to reveal the naked breasts beneath. ‘Was machen—’ she began, trembling with fear.

  ‘Shut up,’ McIntyre cut her
short brutally in German, as Smith and Ginger, followed by Dietz, pushed their way into the kitchen, while Billy Bennett kept watch outside. ‘Where’s the Englishman?’

  ‘The Englishman,’ the woman quavered stupidly and then she began to sob again.

  McIntyre hit her across the face. ‘Stop that, woman. I’m asking you a question – where’s the Englishman? Now, quick, or it will be the worse for you.’

  Shocked, her pale face bearing the red marks of his fingers, the woman choked. ‘He’s gone… the Englishman.’

  ‘Where?’ McIntyre demanded and added for Dietz’s benefit. ‘Quick, have a gander at the rest of the place.’

  He looked at the woman again, as Smith watched him and told himself that the Canadian was a tough bastard. He didn’t pull his punches, even with women. ‘All right now, come on, what happened to the Englishman?’

  Her lips trembling, as if she might break out crying again at any moment, she quavered, ‘The other man, he went after him.’

  ‘What other man?’

  ‘The one with the terrible face from the north. The authorities sent him. I was to have the Englishman in the house when he came…’

  McIntyre looked hard at Smith and the latter nodded his understanding. Sparks had been lured to this place. The woman had been the bait. The man from the north would only be one of von Horn’s people. But why Sparks and what had happened to the handsome cockney?

  ‘Where did he go after him – this man from the north?’ McIntyre demanded, voice hard and relentless.

  She shrugged a little helplessly. ‘I only know he wanted the Englishman’s boat. What he was going to do with it—’

  ‘Sir… sir…’ It was Billy Bennett, standing in the open door, fat face flushed an angry red. ‘I’ve found… found him,’ he gasped.

  ‘Sparks?’ Smith snapped, iron in his voice.

  ‘Yessir. Poor sod’s bin strangled to death.’

  ‘Come on,’ McIntyre cried. ‘Dietz, see what you can squeeze out of the dame about this man from the north.’ Together they piled out of the room and followed Billy Bennett, who was cursing angrily to himself about what he would do to the killer if he ever got his hands on him.

  Sparks was lying huddled behind a pile of logs, his head tilted to one side at an unnatural angle. Smith, playing his torch on the ashen face, could see the trickle of blood which had come out of the side of his mouth and the eyes which bulged out of their sockets. McIntyre, who seemed to know about such things, said softly, ‘Look at those bruise marks on his neck. The man from the north must have the strength of an ox – or a madman.’

  Smith shook his head sadly. Then he pulled himself together. ‘All right. Ginger and Billy, will you please gather him up. We’re taking him back with us. I’m not going to allow one of the Swordfish’s crew to—’

  There was a sharp crack like a twig being snapped underfoot in a hot dry summer. Scarlet flame stabbed the gloom. A bullet howled off the logs, showering the dead man’s face with wood splinters. ‘Christ,’ McIntyre yelled. ‘Someone’s firing at us!’

  That first shot acted, seemingly, as a signal. Another shot followed – and another. They came from behind the little cottage and were obviously being fired from pistols.

  Angrily Smith reacted, his mind full of the brutal murder of Sparks. He fired off a wild burst in the direction from which the pistol shots were coming. There was a yelp of pain. Something heavy fell to the ground. Another voice yelled in rage. A small egg-like object came whirling out of the darkness. ‘Duck!’ Smith cried urgently.

  The grenade exploded only feet away. Red-hot, glowing shards of metal flew everywhere. Smith felt something hot sting him on the side of his jaw. He yelped. Next to him McIntyre cried, ‘Fuck this for a tale!’ He pulled out his automatic and started blasting away.

  Behind him Ginger and Bennett staggered on with the body of Sparks.

  Now, with McIntyre and Smith giving the little party covering fire, they headed for the waiting Swordfish, while their attackers edged closer, clearly outlined in the scarlet stabs of flame. Smith didn’t have time to count them, but they clearly outnumbered their group by at least three to one. Further off he could hear the distinctive horn of a German police car hurrying towards the scene of the shooting and he didn’t need a crystal ball to know on whose side the police would be. If they didn’t make it to the boat soon, it was pretty clear they wouldn’t survive to see another sunrise. ‘Get cracking,’ he urged the panting two ratings carrying the corpse. ‘Come on… They’re getting closer.’

  Suddenly there was the thunderous clatter of a machine gun. White tracer sailed over their heads in lethal fury and slammed into the first line of their attackers. They were bowled in a mess of flailing limbs, screaming in pain – and then the Smith party was clambering aboard the Swordfish frantically, carrying with them their burden of death. They had made it.

  Six

  Saturday.

  It was three in the afternoon. In Cologne the stores were closed and hush had descended upon the Rhenish city. Now the Roman Catholic Church would rule till Monday morning. Anyone who was foolish enough to use a lawn-mower would be reported immediately to the police for having disturbed the pre-Sunday religious silence. A housewife dare not hang out a solitary towel. No children played in the streets. Even the brothels in the red light district behind the station were subdued. No music was allowed.

  But in the GOC’s riverside villa no one paid any attention to the restrictions of the Archbishop of Cologne. In the hall, a string quartet from West Yorks played the popular tunes of the war, selections from Chu Chin Chow and the like, while hearty, slightly bandy officers from the 8th Hussars talked of the old days. Attentive mess waiters in white jackets circulated with silver trays heavy with champagne and whisky.

  The GOC, in particular, was in good spirits. There was not even the slightest hint that he was aware that this was the day when he was supposed to be assassinated. He ‘circulated’ constantly, talking about the pre-war days at the cavalry school at Curragh, how ‘old Jumbo Webster’ went ‘arse over bollocks’ in the riding ring and what that tough little Irish riding master had said afterwards, all punctuated with plenty of ‘haws-haws’ and frequent tugging at his long, straggly, cavalry moustache.

  Outside, the atmosphere was different. In the distance the German police in their tall leather helmets and green overcoats had sealed off the whole area, turning back walkers and people exercising their dogs along the Rhine. Closer at hand, little patrols of the West Yorks Company, now commanded temporarily by McIntyre, explored the grounds. Men armed with long sticks poked inside the bushes and the lower branches of the splendid oaks, while others covered them with loaded rifles.

  McIntyre was here, there and everywhere, loaded revolver in both pockets of his rumpled tunic, a worried look on his tough, craggy face. For he knew that the villa was too big and the grounds too extensive for one hundred per cent security. Why, he told himself, a sniper in any one of those oaks could pot off the GOC every time he exposed himself in one of the tall French windows of the villa. He and his men could not relax the vigilance for a second.

  Off the bank of the Rhine, the Swordfish cruised back and forth at a snail’s pace, every man on watch lining the deck and acting as lookouts. Two hours before, they had found the missing dinghy. But it was empty and a thorough search of it had revealed little of the man who had killed poor Sparks and made off with it. ‘All that we know, Dickie,’ Smith had concluded finally, ‘is that the killer is on our side of the Rhine. But where?’ He had shrugged a little helplessly.

  Tension was high, for even dullards like Billy Bennett, usually more concerned with filling his ample stomach than politics, knew what was at stake. If the unknown German succeeded in killing the GOC, there could be a revolution. As Ginger Kerrigan had said gloomily, ‘If the balloon does go up, Billy, I hope the skipper’ll get us out of here right sharpish. I wouldn’t like to be stranded here.’

  ‘Amen to that,’ Billy had agr
eed sombrely.

  At four, with the light beginning to go, McIntyre came over to the Swordfish for five minutes. Eagerly he downed the pink gin which Smith offered him and reported, ‘The Hussars chaps are beginning to drift off, which is all to the good. Perhaps then I can convince the GOC to keep away from those windows. I’ve heard from C too,’ he added. ‘He’s making representations to the German government in Berlin through the PM of course – not that the Welsh Wizard’ – he meant Lloyd George, the Prime Minister – ‘will be very effective. The latest from his office is “Kiss the Hun and kill the Bolshy”.’ He frowned darkly and under other circumstances, Dickie Bird would have been inclined to laugh and make a weak joke. Not now. The situation was obviously too serious.

  ‘What does C want the Germans to do?’ Smith asked.

  ‘Well, he’s told the Welsh Wizard a little about this affair here. He wants the PM to put pressure on the Huns in Berlin to stop this Hitler before the balloon really goes up.’ McIntyre sucked his teeth. ‘Don’t know how far the PM’ll get though. The Jerry government are a weak bunch.’ He reached for his cap. ‘Ah well, better get back and check that those West Yorks don’t go back to marching to attention with their rifles at the slope.’

  The hours passed leadenly. Now it was completely dark. No noise, not even that of the trams, came from Cologne. It was all buried in pre-Sunday religious gloom. The lights still burned brightly at the villa though and the last guests had still not departed. On the wind they could still hear the West Yorks’ quarter scraping away, playing ‘Pack up your troubles in yer old kitbag,’ which occasioned Billy Bennett, whose stomach was rumbling loudly, to remark, ‘I wish I could pack up my troubles and get down to the galley, I’m ruddy well starving.’

  At six, Smith stood down half the watch so that they could go below and get something to eat and a hot drink, warning the men, ‘Half an hour, that’s all, then you’re back on deck to relieve the other half-watch. Off you go.’